Yankees Acquire Eric Young Jr. From Brewers

The Yankees announced that they’ve acquired outfielder Eric Young Jr. from the Brewers in exchange for cash considerations and assigned him to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Young, 31, is a veteran of seven big league seasons and is known for his standout speed. He’s a career .247/.314/.328 hitter in 1683 big league plate appearances and has 144 steals in 179 attempts over the course of 557 Major League contests (an 80.4 percent success rate). This season, he’s spent the entire year with Milwaukee’s Triple-A affiliate in Colorado Springs, batting .263/.338/.339 with 23 steals in 29 attempts over the life of 116 games. He’ll give the Yankees an option as a pinch-runner off the bench late in games in September as the club hopes to remain afloat in the race for the second American League Wild Card spot. New York is currently 3.5 games behind the division-rival Orioles for that spot, but they’d have to leapfrog the Royals, Astros and Tigers in addition to Baltimore in order to secure a postseason berth.

“Cash considerations” usually just means that the Yankees are paying the rest of his contract. Since the Brewers are out of contention this year, they figure they can save a few dollars on him to spend in the offseason. They likely would have released him anyway, but a team willing to pay his remaining salary is even better. That’s my understanding anyway